{"id":17185,"date":"2022-06-20T15:52:56","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T13:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1665316"},"modified":"2022-06-20T16:08:12","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T14:08:12","slug":"star-trek-strange-new-worlds-writes-a-love-letter-to-the-original-series","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-writes-a-love-letter-to-the-original-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds writes a love-letter to the original series"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Olivia Garrett\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 20 June 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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It\u2019s been almost 60 years since the Starship Enterprise\u2019s maiden voyage \u2013 yet this Wednesday (at least in the UK) it sets sail once more in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds<\/a>, with a crew of new and old faces populating Paramount Plus\u2019 sequel\/reboot (which spins off from fellow modern Trek series Star Trek: Discovery).<\/p>\n

For Anson Mount, who plays returning character Christopher Pike, it was a big \u201cresponsibility\u201d to sit down in the Captain\u2019s chair. \u201cIt\u2019s surreal. It\u2019s the longest the job has remained surreal to me. I am daily reminded of the responsibility that this is more than just a show to a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joined by the rest of the cast in an exclusive talk with RadioTimes.com<\/a>, Mount explains that it was important this new series pay homage to the original. \u201cThere\u2019s an optimism, and a sense of fun from the original series that we really wanted to inject into this.\u201d<\/p>

And this was a conscious shift. Unlike the Star Trek universe\u2019s other recent programmes, Discovery and Picard, Mount notes that Strange New Worlds has an episodic \u201cplanet of the week\u201d format which makes it closer in tone to the original series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives us the freedom to not only have different stories each week, but different ways to get there. So each episode can be its own standalone, not just story, but its own kind of thing,\u201d says Mount.<\/p>\n

Ethan Peck, who will be returning as his younger version of Leonard Nimoy\u2019s Spock, adds: \u201cYou can really kind of jump in at any point in our season and enjoy an episode. There\u2019s serialised emotion within the characters but otherwise, each episode has its own world and its own conflict to be solved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly, for actor Babs Olusanmokun (aka Dr. Mbenga), the show is a \u201cmarriage\u201d between old and new. \u201cWe\u2019ve got really out-of-this-world special effects that go along with those \u201960s aesthetics, but it\u2019s the chance to tell a different story.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds<\/span><\/figcaption> Paramount Plus<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

With the story taking place in-between the original unaired pilot (The Cage) in 1966 and Captain Kirk\u2019s (William Shatner) better-known time on the ship, the series contains plenty of iconic references and returning characters. Olusanmokun\u2019s character Dr. Mbenga was a sporadic replacement for Dr McCoy (DeForest Kelley) in the original series and Jess Bush\u2019s Nurse Christine Chapel was a regular part of the med-bay. For the actors, playing such legacy characters was an \u201cexciting challenge\u201d as they were keen to fill in the gaps and flesh out the lesser-known characters in a new way.<\/p>\n

Yet for Ethan Peck, who first played Spock in season 2 of Star Trek Discovery, there was plenty of pressure involved in bringing the character back to life. \u201cI felt just an overwhelming sense of responsibility when I was cast in this role. I think I cried tears of both joy and of terror,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was quite fearful to make mistakes; to do something that Spock wouldn\u2019t have done. But over time I\u2019ve found more freedom and experimentation in the character. Because these are years of his life we\u2019ve never seen before and who knows what he was like?\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining him in this trepidation was Celia Rose Gooding, who debuts in Strange New Worlds taking on the role of the beloved Nyota Uhura, originally played by Nichelle Nichols. \u201cNichelle\u2019s Uhura was so incredibly iconic,\u201d says Gooding, \u201cso of course I felt the pressure of stepping into an iconic legacy. I have to build the person who Nichelle eventually grows into.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds: \u201cBut then I had like a wash of clarity that the hard part\u2019s already done for me, I know her future. I know what her goals and dreams and wishes and wants will be in the future, I just have to do all the stuff that leads up to that. And so the puzzle is already built for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ethan Peck as Spock in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds<\/span><\/figcaption> JAMES DIMMOCK\/PARAMOUNT+ \u00a92022 CBS STUDIOS<\/i><\/span><\/div>\n

Other members of the cast, like Rebecca Romijn, had more of a blank slate to work with. Her character Number One only appeared in the original unaired pilot played by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (who would, confusingly, go on to play Jess Bush\u2019s character Nurse Chapel).<\/p>\n

\u201cShe only got about 14 minutes of screen time,\u201d says Romijn. \u201cWe don\u2019t really know who she is as a character, we didn\u2019t ever learn her real name, which is Una Chin-Riley.\u201d Because of this, Romijn says she had a lot of \u201cartistic liberty\u201d with the character but still felt connected with her roots: \u201cI felt like it was my duty to take care of this character and hopefully I get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Romijn first saw the Enterprise set used in Discovery, she had an inkling that she would have another chance to play the character. \u201cThe first time we walked onto the bridge set, Anson and Ethan and I looked at each other and it was like we were reading each other\u2019s minds: we thought, \u2018There\u2019s just no way they built this set for this one episode.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And she was not alone in her excitement. When Strange New Worlds itself began filming, Christina Chong (La\u2019an Noonien-Singh) reveals that she was in \u201csevere shock\u201d on her first day, while Celia Rose-Gooding was consumed with worry about reaching the right buttons.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first thought was, \u2018How do I fly this thing?\u2019\u201d laughs Melissa Navia, who plays pilot Erica Ortegas. \u201cI was straight up Googling \u2018How do you fly a Starship?\u2019 because nothing had prepared me and I still haven\u2019t gotten over it.\u201d<\/p>\n